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Thursday, October 2, 2008

Fueling for Endurance: Article

Sure, they're trying to sell you Hammer Gel, but this article goes into a lot of detail that applies to any product you're going to use while doing endurance activity.

Proper Caloric Intake During Exercise

Highlights:
  • Ditch the sucrose, glucose, fructose... if it ends in "ose", leave it at home
  • Fuel with complex carbs, primarily maltodextrin
  • Aim for about 250 calories from carbs an hour (or less if you're smaller than me, I'm big)
  • Add protein if you're going out longer than 90-120 mins, preferably from soy

Oh yeah, and :

  • Buy lots of Hammer products!!!

I don't know if I buy all that he's selling... I've had good experience with more of a mix of carbs, and I did my most recent century ride primarily fueling with Gatorade, gels, turkey wraps, cookies... felt great at the end, had energy throughout. Maybe I would have done better if I'd stuck to the complex carbs, who knows?

For my upcoming marathon, I'm going with a Maltodextrin-based gel. I plan to use one every 1/2 hour, giving me about 200 calories from gels each hour. I'll take mostly water from the aid stations, but will also grab the odd Gatorade to give me the 250 calories I should be aiming for. It's more or less what I've been doing in training, so I'm fairly confident it will work out.

1 comment:

triman said...

Hey thanks,sorry for the slow response I have not checked my blog for a while... I'm doing my first marathon on Oct 12th in Victoria....and guess what?...I'm also hoping to do a sub 4:00 based on my 1/2 times and my last 30km..well thats the plan if all goes well, tomorrow I do my longest run to date..40km split 20 in the am and 20 in the pm. Looks like you had a good summer and I see you have 2009 all planned out..that is great! I don't have Ironman planned yet due to the fact that my wife may be in Regina in the new year or sooner for 6 months to train for the RCMP. So here's wishing you well on your marathon too! lets keep our fingers crossed we both get sub 4s!
Cheers, Ivan